Thirty-five million years ago, a meteor or comet two miles wide struck Earth at what is now Cape Charles after traveling at twenty-one miles per second, creating the sixth largest impact crater on earth. It hit the shallow sea that covered the state's eastern half and exploded with more force than the combined nuclear arsenal of today's world powers. Rock flew skyward, bedrock fractured seven miles deep, and enormous tsunamis raced westward to the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Melted rock splashed upward in the center and hardened into a central peak nearly a mile tall directly under Cape Charles. Over the centuries, sediment and debris filled in the crater, and much of it now lies beneath the Chesapeake Bay. Although the crater is not visible today, small earthquakes occasionally rock its fault lines, and two low ridges far underground appear to mimic its contours, one near Painter northeast of Cape Charles and the other just east of Gloucester Courthouse on the western side of the Bay.
